Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. This is Jim Van Gelderen and we’re broadcasting tonight from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. Our team, the Cola Clash team, is finishing right now in Maine actually have probably been finished a few minutes now.

I haven’t heard a report from tonight, but I know that on Thursday night they, I believe, had five saved. On Wednesday night. They had twelve saved and had a very good crowd come to both of those nights.

Last night they faced some weather and um, but we are grateful for what the Lord is doing through the Cola Clash team. They literally have just seen scores and scores saved over the summer. They have one more week in Maine and we’re excited about what God’s doing there.

I know myself, we are here in mid-August and looking to begin the War of Special Forces, uh, this fall. Some of you are familiar with the War of Special Forces. It’s a ministry primarily to a Christian school all week long, Monday to Friday.

But we have three rally nights in which we invite the lost. And many times we see, um, many young people come to know the Lord. We’re looking forward to a tour out in California and Arizona, and if you live out that way, you may want to check in a few weeks or SF dot org and see where the war may be.

Maybe you’ll be close enough to drive up for a night or two. As always, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights. And the starting time is different.

Usually six or six thirty, but we’d love to see some of you. Well, tonight I’d like to just spend a few moments and address something that will hopefully be an encouragement to you. Have you ever really got excited about standing on a promise of God, and then you felt like your faith just weakened, or like you had a leak in your faith cup and it just all your faith leaked out?

Well, there’s a man that we all are familiar with, if you know the Bible at all by the name of Abraham, who is facing a very similar situation. Uh, he was a hundred years old, his wife was ninety, and God had told him he was going to have the seed as the sand of the sea shore.

In other words, uh, his, uh, those that would come after him that, uh, would be literally into the millions is really what the inference is. And of course, the Jewish race did come from Abraham. But when God gave that promise, at that point, Abraham was one hundred, his wife.

Ninety and of course God said through his wife would come this the seed would come the son. And she didn’t have any children. So it was absolutely impossible, humanly, totally impossible.

And yet God promised it. And the Bible says in verse nineteen of Romans chapter number four, you’re certainly welcome to open your Bible to Romans chapter number four. It says, talking about Abraham and being not weak in faith.

He considered not his own body, now dead when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb. Obviously, they were both well past childbearing years. And the Bible says that, um, he didn’t consider that impossibility.

Why? Because God had promised it. Uh, God had made a very specific promise to him.

And when God makes a promise, young person in His word, you can stand on it. So how did how did he handle the situation? It wasn’t like there was a resolution immediately.

Uh, the Bible tells us in the next verse the key, there’s a two fold key that I want to share with you tonight. Because many times, young person, as you’re reading your Bible, you’ll come across a promise and you might grab that promise, hold on to that promise. And then like I mentioned, it seems that circumstances just seem to give you the idea that God’s God can’t keep his promises impossible, or perhaps even your own feelings.

You begin to feel like you don’t have very much faith. Well, Abraham gives us two keys. Number one, the Bible says he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief.

Now that word staggered simply means he didn’t vacillate. In other words, it wasn’t like I believe God one day. Doubt God the next day.

Believe God, then doubt God. The Bible says he didn’t do that, which simply means this young person. You got to deal with doubt.

Anytime doubt comes and casts Doubt upon the Word of God, or upon the character of God as revealed in the Word of God. We need to deal with it. We need to say that’s not true.

The Bible has promised. God says, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally. If you are asking for wisdom, then you’d have to.

The moment you feel like, well, God’s not going to give me wisdom, I don’t feel very wise. You’d have to say it doesn’t matter how I feel. It doesn’t matter what the moment looks like.

God says he’d give me the wisdom if I asked for it, and he’s going, I’m going to have the wisdom when I need it. And you got to deal with doubt. You just have to deal with doubt.

When a Satan or this old world cast doubt upon God or His Word. The next one is a key of truth. Phenomenal truth.

It says, but he was strong in faith, giving glory to God. Now the word strong in faith is actually a verb in the Greek language, and it’s in the passive voice. Now you may wonder, what the world does that mean?

It simply means this. Abraham did not strengthen his own faith. Something outside or someone outside of Abraham strengthened Abraham’s faith.

Now we know who that was. That was God. But notice how God did it.

Here’s what it says. But was strong in faith, giving glory to God. In other words, could we say this, that Abraham started praising God for the promise that he had given?

Could we put it this way? He probably walked outside his tent, looked up toward the sky, and said, thank you, God, that my seed is going to be as the sand of the seashore, that I’m going to have a son. And.

And he began to praise God for what wasn’t. Earlier in the passage, God is called this way God calleth those things which be not as though they were. In other words, God had called it, you’re going to have a son.

And God called something that wasn’t as though it was. Why? Because in God’s eternal perspective, it was so.

You can praise God when you’ve got a promise you’re standing on, and you can praise him even though you don’t see it yet, because God always keeps his Promises. So a young person deal with doubt and peel with praise. In other words, when you’ve got a promise, start thanking God that he’s going to keep his promise, thanking God that he’s a promise keeping God.

And when you do, you will find that God will strengthen your faith supernaturally. When you praise God, he will strengthen your faith. Young people, keep looking to the Lord and thank the Lord for the generation.

Young people who are totally surrendered to do the will of God and totally dependent on his power to do it.